[Telepathy] [ssh-contact] Why do I need X11 running and is there a workaround for avoiding it?

[Christophe-Marie Duquesne]

Hi,

Thank you for telepathy. I was impressed when I read about the tubes
feature: sounds like a great way to interconnect applications!

I plan to write code using stream tubes and I wanted first to play
with some program that uses them, so I have chosen ssh-contact. I
installed it on a headless box and I tried to set it up. Here is what
I get:
~/ > ssh-contact
** (ssh-contact:13703): DEBUG: Error: Unable to autolaunch a
dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11

Well, this brings a first question:
It seems like to run ssh-contact, you need X11 running. Why? Does
telepathy depend on it? Or directly ssh-contact? Or is it a dbus
thing? Is it something that we could avoid?

My second question:
Is there a way to tweak my ~/.ssh/config and to use directly
ssh-contact as a proxycommand for some hosts?

Cheers,
-- 
Christophe-Marie